Kukla's Korner Hockey

- The Blue Jackets have the best power play in the league (25.9 percent) through 22 games, even though they’ve only gone on the man-advantage a league-low 58 times. In comparison, the Predators had 82 opportunities in the same amount of games.

- Dallas coach Lindy Ruff made John Klingberg a healthy scratch against Detroit on Tuesday. Klingberg’s coaches and teammates have compared him to Erik Karlsson. But Klingberg was given a seat in the press box because there’s been too much risk in his game.

- Ben Bishop has always known his time is coming to an end in Tampa Bay. Bishop will cede the net to Andrei Vasilevskiy, who is younger and cheaper. But Bishop may not finish the season with the Lightning given his performance. Through 16 games, Bishop is 7-9-0 with a 2.99 GAA and .902 save percentage. The plan was for the Lightning to carry both goalies through the season. But Bishop’s not playing well enough for Tampa to keep feeding him starts when Vasilevskiy (6-2-1, 2.24 GAA, .930 save percentage) has been the better goalie.

Blackhawks Head Team Physician Dr. Michael Terry: "Corey presented this morning with acute appendicitis. He is undergoing an appendectomy today at a Philadelphia hospital. We are anticipating a full recovery and return to play. We will provide details regarding the timeline of his return after we have more information about the surgery.

“I’ll f----n’ kill you,” right? I played hockey for 20 years as a professional, and I never thought when someone said that to me or to someone else that they meant “I’m going to kill you.” It’s like when you’re a kid: “I’m going to kill you.” You don’t mean you’re going to kill him.

Scott Malkin and Jon Ledecky have not said anything publicly during the Islanders’ dismal start to the owners’ first season in charge. But they have been busy.

Newsday has learned that Malkin and Ledecky have been meeting since the summer with a number of people in the hockey world, from former team chief officers to power agents to retired players, in hopes of finding a “big name” to step in and oversee the Isles’ operations.

Sources say that Malkin and Ledecky are not close to naming anyone to what would be a team president role — one of the two titles currently held by Garth Snow, who has been president and general manager since the summer of 2006. A team spokesman flatly denied that there is any search underway for a new team president.

SHARKS CONTINUE HOME DOMINANCE OF CANADIENSJoe Pavelski (1-1—2) and Brent Burns each scored to help the Sharks improve to 6-1-1 in their past eight games overall and pick up their 10th consecutive home win over the Canadiens dating to March 12, 2001 (MTL: 0-8-2).

* Pavelski, who led the NHL and matched a franchise record with 11 game-winning goals in 2015-16, scored his third such tally this season. Burns, meanwhile, paces all defensemen in goals (10) and points (22) in 2016-17.

* Martin Jones made 31 saves, including an acrobatic glove stop on Alex Galchenyuk, to improve to 5-1-0 in his past six appearances (1.17 GAA, .957 SV%, 1 SO).

THORNTON CLIMBS ALL-TIME POINTS LIST
Sharks forward Joe Thornton (379-977—1,356) notched two assists while playing in his 1,392nd career game to move past Brendan Shanahan (656-698—1,354 in 1,524 GP) and into sole possession of 25th place on the NHL’s all-time points list.

* Thornton, who ranks second in scoring among active players behind Jaromir Jagr (753-1,127—1,880 in 1,653 GP), now sits 13 points back of Johnny Bucyk (556-813—1,369 in 1,540 GP) for 24th place in NHL history.

Boy, the NHL sure had us there for a while. During the first two weeks of the season, players were filling the nets like it was the Bill Clinton administration. The first three nights of this season, there was an 11-goal game, a 10-goal game, three nine-goal games and two eight-goal games. Rookie Auston Matthews turned in a record on the first night of the season by scoring four goals in his NHL debut and his team still lost the game.

Good times. Yup, good times. And like all good times, it inevitably had to come to an end. Because NHL. The orgy of scoring we saw early in the season has been replaced with what seems like a record number of loop passes from the defensive zone. And why are defensemen doing this at such a regular pace? Because trying to get the puck through the neutral zone along the ice is almost impossible.

Through the first 356 games of this season, NHL teams have scored a total of 1,880 goals. Those are real goals. The phony ones teams are awarded for winning the NHL’s skills competition are not included. That means teams are scoring at an average of 5.28 goals per game this season, which if it sticks, will mean scoring is at its lowest in the NHL since The Dead Puck Era™.

The NHL Players’ Association has formally rejected the league’s proposal to allow players to participate in the 2018 Olympics in exchange for an extension to the current collective bargaining agreement.

NHLPA executive director Don Fehr says that the players, primarily the executive board, showed no interest in the idea.

He says he hopes “we’ll still be able to conclude an agreement to go to the Olympics.”

Fehr tells The Canadian Press in an exclusive interview that “we still think it’s (playing in 2018) important and we’ll go from there.”

"When we got the pick, everyone was excited at the prospect of having Patty," Wheeler said. "You heard all the stories about his shot and the dynamic things he could do. That's all well and good, but he's 18. You expect there to be a learning curve, you expect to be some speed bumps along the way.

"All of a sudden, he's leading the NHL in goals, and it's not by mistake. It's crazy. He gets the puck in areas [where] you don't really feel like [he has] a scoring chance. All of sudden, it's in the back of the net. You just kind of shake your head.''...

Laine is on pace for 47 goals. He has already had two hat tricks and, yes, he's earned a few nicknames already.

"That was the big thing: 'What do people call him?'" said Wheeler, 30, chuckling. "He started with 'Patty,' and then he got more comfortable and revealed that all his buddies back home call him 'Patsyuk,' obviously after Pavel Datsyuk.

Like he has so many times before in his copy, one line from Cam Cole left our jaws dropped.

“Since someone spilled the beans: My last day at Postmedia is Dec. 16. Man, 41 years went fast,” Cam announced on Twitter.

With that, the tributes poured in.

Cam Cole is the guy every sports fan wants to read. He’s the guy every sports writer wants to be. He can outshoot you on the golf course and then outdrink you at the bar. And that’s after writing the 2,500 words everybody will be talking about at the rink the next morning. He’s got a great family too.

Actually, we should hate this guy.

But we don’t. We love Cam Cole.

If Bob McKenzie is the Godfather, Cam Cole is The Legend. That he’s leaving Postmedia on his own terms only adds to that legend.

Have a beer tonight for Cam. Then have ten more for the rest of us who aren't sure when we'll get to read Cam Cole again.

Leafs fan Chris Gumbert said he tried to order himself a Mitch Marner Centennial sweater from a page on shop.nhl.com billed as the Toronto team’s “official shop.”

After entering his Hamilton, Ont., mailing address, Gumbert was confronted with an error message telling him his order “contains manufacturer direct items that cannot be shipped to addresses outside of the continental United States.”

NHL customer service representatives confirmed to the Star that the jersey, which will be worn by the Leafs when they take on the Detroit Red Wings in a Jan. 1 outdoor game at BMO Field, could not be mailed to Canada.